Speaking for the little guys

Hiring an IT Consultant for Your Business

Finding a computer support company in Melbourne isn’t an easy job. We have all heard stories from friends or read online about how the computer guy made their pc worse or lost all their data. You may even hear the stories of a friend’s nephew is into computer games and knows how to managed your computer network.

The computer industry doesn’t have regulations to control the quality of the technicians out there and it can be quite scary when you stop to think about it. Other industries like mechanics, plumbers, electricians, dentists, doctors, lawyers all have to follow regulations in order for their business to run. So this is why its important to find an IT company you can trust and rely on to help look after your business.

As a computer technician for more that 15 years I have seen my fair share of technicians from the good to the bad. I live in Melbourne Australia and over my years of working in IT, I have encountered lots of businesses who have left their current IT provider and are on the lookout for a new Managed Service Provider in Melbourne.

They were fed up with their current provider managing their IT or lack of and overtime I have built up a list of things you should be looking for in an IT Company.

1) When you call them do they answer every time or do you find yourself constantly calling and leaving message after message?

I listed this one first as it’s probably the most common problem I see and it is highly frustrating as a customer to ring up someone to get help only to be greeted with a voicemail or no one to help you.

This is why I make it a priority to try to answer every single call that comes in. Obviously there maybe times where your in a meeting or have a few jobs on so if it does goto voicemail ill ensure I always get back to someone quickly. May not resolve the problem straight away but customers simply want to know you understand their problem and you are working on it. Communication is the key and its vital to keep your clients up to date on issues going on in their business.

2) Do they explain things to you in a way you understand or is it Geek Speak. Do they come across as arrogant and make you feel stupid for asking questions?

Any technician that does this I have never seen last long. When you get too technical and speak to clients in Geek Speak you really aren’t doing yourself any favours. Thats why its important that they can fix the problems and also explain what has happened and why it has happened in a way clients understand.

It’s also important to not belittle people and be arrogant because not everyone understands technical issues. With my company we always explain to clients what has happened or what technical terms mean in an easy to understand analogy.

3) Are they proactive or reactive to problems?

Are they looking out for your business by being proactive towards your computers and servers? Or are they simply fixing the fires that occur.

Think of an IT Company like a Fire Station – They can respond to fires that come up or they can also be proactive and help educate people on fire and safety to help fires even occurring in the first place.

A good IT company will be proactive and give you advise on improving your security, network performance and give you recommendations.

4) Do you get reports on what they do?

It’s good to get reports on how your IT is going and what your IT support is actually doing for you. Are you getting reports on a daily,weekly or monthly basis. Reports like backups, security patches, viruses detected,

We make sure our clients get these reports to show the overall health of the network and provide solutions on fixing anything that is standing out in the reports.

If your not getting these reports you must ask your self what am I paying my current IT provider to do? They maybe doing these tasks but if you don’t see the reports how do you know?

5) Documentation

Does your current IT provider have adequate documentation on your network. If they were to go out of business or you decided to leave your current IT do you have all the information about your servers, routers, networks and licenses, passwords, how the network is currently setup?

We make documentation a priority for all our clients and ensure all the critical devices are documented and also take photos of the equipment so the helpdesk staff can easily and efficiently assist customers on rebooting a device or determining what problems are going on.

6) Are they monitoring your online backups and do they go offsite?

Do you get reports on how your backups are going. Does your IT provider test the backups to ensure they are working. Is your backups going offsite so that if your office was to burn down or become flooded etc you would be able to restore the data to another location and become operational?

Not having these processes in place can potential ruin businesses and the recovery from such disasters can be near impossible.

There are many more things to look out for when hiring a new IT company but hopefully these few mentioned above are a few you will consider next time you have to hire a new provider.